Aggregator of Demand Response for Renewable Integration and Customer Engagement: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats

Abstract

The world is progressing towards a more advanced society where end-consumers have access to local renewable-based generation and advanced forms of information and technology. Hence, it is in a current state of transition between the traditional approach to power generation and distribution, where end-consumers of electricity have typically been inactive in their involvement with energy markets and a new approach that integrates their active participation. This new approach includes the use of distributed energy resources (DER) such as renewable-based generation and demand response (DR), which are being rapidly adopted by end-consumers where incentives are strong. This paper presents the role of the DR aggregator to effectively integrate DER technology as a new source of energy capacity into electricity networks using information communication technology and industry knowledge., Based on DR aggregators, this framework will efficiently facilitate renewable energy integration and customer engagement into the electricity market. To this aim, advantages and disadvantages of DR aggregators are discussed in this paper from political, economic, social, and technological (PEST) points of view. Based on this analysis, a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis for a typical DR aggregator is presented.

Towards Sustainable Energy-Efficient Communities Based on a Scheduling Algorithm

“…Special focus is taken on the software design in order to facilitate the integration and scalability of the community system future development. An example of a DR aggregator model is designed in the work by the authors of [10] to facilitate renewable energy integration, where end consumers play a key role.…”

Advanced Monitoring and Control System for Virtual Power Plants for Enabling Customer Engagement and Market Participation

“…Investing in different technologies in a VPP is only beneficial where the customers within the VPP interact with them and participate in demand management. Therefore, the VPP needs to provide an attractive information and technology platform to the customers to facilitate the aggregation of their flexibilities [22] and to encourage them to engage with the requests from the VPP owner for demand shaping, appliance control, security and frequency control, and local power quality improvement [23]. This will help the VPP to participate effectively in the WEM to maximize the benefits to the customers and the VPP owner.…”

Cost–Benefit Analysis of a Virtual Power Plant Including Solar PV, Flow Battery, Heat Pump, and Demand Management: A Western Australian Case Study

“…In addition, VPPs are able to fill the information and technology gap in the electricity market and utilities for better incorporating the end-user participants into the wholesale market and addressing technical issues in the network. VPPs can contribute to demand shaping and reducing the peak load, security, and frequency control, in addition to local power quality improvement [4]. Therefore, a VPP demonstration was established in Australia from 2019 via the collaboration of the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC), and the Australian Energy Regulator (AER) to investigate the capabilities and effectiveness of VPPs in different ways with a forecast of total installed VPP capacity of 700 MW by 2022 [5].…”